Todd Miller’s The Border Chronicle writes about “The Border Industrial Complex Goes Big Time.” We are reminded that we live in a capitalist country that spends its money, not on people, but on corporations that make exorbitant profits from surveillance activities; gathering and then selling data; detaining men, women, and children, then deporting them to their countries to the violence that they fled. Researchers are using technology to harm people rather than to support human beings at the U.S./Mexico border.
It is our legislators, our government, our entire system that is making this decision to invest in enforcement technology. Our taxes should be used to help people affected by climate change that have little options to earn a living to feed their families. The U.S. is continuing to divide us and keeps us from living a safe life with sufficient basic needs. Robotic dogs, robotic hummingbirds, and virtual walls have been lucrative contracts for Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) bringing in $7.5 billion in 2022. There has been a trend of steady increase, reporting that since 2008, 112,575 contracts for a total of $69.6 billion have been paid by our government. Did you give permission for this expenditure? Were we even asked??
The winners of these horrendous payments have been companies such as Accenture, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, Leidos, Anduril, Palantir, CoreCivic, and GEO Group and others that were paid thousands and millions of dollars for border infrastructures along with drones/unmanned aircraft.
The American Friends Service Committee has investigated and found contracts with Vantage Robotics, Teal Drones, Atlantic Diving Supply, and W.S. Darley to supply Border Patrol with small drones. Shockingly, Equifax (the credit agency) was paid almost $41,000 to supply agents with its databases to help target people for deportation by using information such as credit history, financial assets, previous employment, telecommunication, utility payments, as well as mortgages, child support, and social services. They are using technology to hunt for people!!! There has been a declaration of war at our southern border and we are all under surveillance.
We must also know about the political connections and corruption via lobbying and campaign contributions made by GEO Group and CoreCivic among others to influence getting more funds and influencing legislation. The article mentions campaign contributions to key congressional figures during the 2022 election cycle such as Lucille Roybal-Allard (Democrat of California), the chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Securing our Borders has become a lucrative business.
The connections are there. Democrats and Republicans are wooed by lobbyists who do their research to know what elected officials are in influential committees or posts and donate thousands of dollars to influence how they vote. And this is all allowed by law! The elected officials all need campaign money for their next election and are pressured to accept these funds. In 2022, from January to September, there were over 12,000 lobbyists approaching and convincing legislators to support their positions. Corporations are the ones who hire lobbyists.
Back scratching each other, “helping you by helping me” at the tune of millions of dollars is corruption. All this activity has resulted in the highest-ever combined budget of CBP and ICE at $26 billion, up from $24.3 billion last year, and $24.7 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants at the border are suffering, dependent on the public’s charity, and waiting for an opportunity to find work to financially support their families.
Are you convinced as to why you need to get involved in asking questions and taking note of who is running our lives? Start at the local level and get involved, run for office, and discover the corruption with our public tax money.
To learn more look for “follow the money” at OpenSecrets.org.
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Very important! Thanks for this vital information. Can I share this?
Yes please and thanks.
Vital & damning information! If I ran for office I would be torn apart for my single mothering of all my “illegitimate” children, some who are mixed race, my radical non-violence that put me in jail for 4 months 41 years ago, my various other nonviolent actions I was arrested for, my decades of living on the lands of resister traditional Dine’ people opposing Peabody coal expansion & federally mandated mass forced relocation that destroyed an ancient self sufficient way of life & my long term radical nonconforming to the killer capitalistic dominant society!!!!